Video 8:23
Are bushwalkers in danger from National Park hunting system?

Conor Duffy
Mon 18 Feb 2013, 8:35 PM AEDT

Hunting in New South Wales National Parks starts in March but critics say the body overseeing it, the Game Council, is too closely linked to the shooting lobby and they worry about what that may mean for safety.

Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: Next month, thousands of hunters will be able to shoot in New South Wales national parks. Their licences will be issued and their competence assessed by a statutory authority called the Game Council. But there are questions about the close links between that council and the shooting lobby. A 7.30 investigation has found evidence that two councillors on the independent body have distributed political material promoting hunting and blocking other methods of controlling feral animals. Conor Duffy reports.

CONOR DUFFY, REPORTER: Jim Pirie has been hunting for 60 years. A self-confessed gun nut, he's the president of his local hunting club in Mudgee in the central west of NSW and a one-time candidate for the Shooters and Fishers Party.

He's bracing himself for an onslaught of amateur hunters heading for the state's national parks.

CONOR DUFFY: Jim Pirie also owns the local gun shop. He says most of his customers agree that shooting in national parks is a bad idea.

JIM PIRIE: It'll come back to haunt all of us. So, if a young child was to be shot with a heavy calibre rifle then probably the first thing they'd be screaming for is cut out heavy calibre rifles. It's not a nice thing to talk about, but we can't ignore the possibility.

CONOR DUFFY: The key player behind the move to open up hunting in national parks is the Game Council of NSW. It's a statutory body set up in 2002 by the then Bob Carr-led Labor government. The rationale is that hunters could help control feral animals. From the start it's been seen as a political decision to win the support of the Shooters and Fishers Party.

CATE FAEHRMANN, NSW GREENS: The Labor government did need John Tingle from the Shooters Party's vote in the NSW Upper House at that time and they were doing everything they could to secure his support over the coming years.

CONOR DUFFY: Last year, the Game Council's powers were extended and the decision made to allow hunters into national parks. The Coalition government of Barry O'Farrell did the deal in exchange for the Shooters Party's support of electricity privatisation.

CATE FAEHRMANN: The Shooters Party, to support Barry O'Farrell's electricity privatisation, held up shooting in national parks, recreational hunting in national parks, as what it wanted to support that. So basically, the Shooters Party literally did hold the state to ransom.

CONOR DUFFY: Almost 20,000 hunters have had a restricted or R licence issued by the Game Council. To obtain it, you have to sit a written test and critics say it's too easy to pass.

Even some shooters believe it's more about spreading a gun culture than controlling feral animals.

JIM PIRIE: They don't have the people or the skills and ability to do that. Feral pigs at the national parks do aerial shoots and they'll shoot up to 1,200 in a weekend. Well, a couple of people in camo suits from down around Penrith aren't gonna shoot that many in a weekend. They might get 10 or a dozen if they're lucky.

CONOR DUFFY: Gary Bryant was an Army infantry officer for 27 years and now runs a company called the Firearm Safety Council. He thinks the Game Council's R licence falls well short of the national standard that he follows.

GARY BRYANT, FIREARM SAFETY AND TRAINING COUNCIL: I base it on the fact that you can acquire a restricted game licence without ever having fired a firearm in your life. Now, that I think is inadequate a training standard and I think it could be easily improved and should be improved.

JOHN MUMFORD, CHAIRMAN, GAME COUNCIL OF NSW: Now I would back our R licence hunters against professional hunters any day of the week.

CONOR DUFFY: It would be possible to get an R licence though without actually having shot a gun, wouldn't it?

JOHN MUMFORD: It would be possible, yes.

CONOR DUFFY: So how safe and how skilled can those people be?

There has long been criticism from the Greens about the council's ties to the Shooters and Fishers Party. Now shooters are saying it as well.

JIM PIRIE: Well it is all the same people with different coloured hats.

CONOR DUFFY: How do you mean?

JIM PIRIE: Well, two former chairmen are now both members of Parliament.

CONOR DUFFY: So you think it's stacked with people that are close to the party?

JIM PIRIE: Oh yeah.

CONOR DUFFY: The council's chairman John Mumford says he's not a member of the Shooters Party.

JOHN MUMFORD: But I can assure you we don't take our riding instructions from the Shooters and Fishers Party. They don't take theirs from us either. So, we are not an NGO for the Shooters and Fishers Party.

CONOR DUFFY: But information obtained by 7.30 suggests two Game Council councillors have distributed political material targeting a rival pest control program. In the middle of last year this lurid flyer began circulating at gun shows. Quoting Animals Australia, it urged people to write to the Environment Minister in protest at a poisoning program run by national parks. The flyer went attributed and at the time the Game Council denied knowledge. But 7.30 has an email from a Game Council councillor Douglas Schupe which says, "This is being printed for us."

JOHN MUMFORD: In our official role as a councillor, NSW Game Council, no, we did not do that. In our role as private citizens, a number of them including myself were involved in the production of that flyer.

CONOR DUFFY: At the time the Game Council denied any knowledge of that, was that a bit dishonest then seeing as you say that you ... ?

JOHN MUMFORD: No, 'cause Game Council division had nothing to do with the production of that flyer. I mean, I'm not obliged as the chairman of the Game Council and (inaudible) Game Council of what I do as a private citizen.

CATE FAEHRMANN: So this is a body that is paid for by taxpayers that is a statutory agency that is s'posed to conduct itself with the highest level of ethics. ... It's actively campaigning and the people in there are actively campaigning against effective pest management control.

CONOR DUFFY: John Mumford says the flyer was paid for by a hunting group worried about animal welfare and concerned shooters could eat poisoned deer.

Why didn't you say who the flyer was from? It's almost made to look like it could be from an animal rights group.

JOHN MUMFORD: Yeah, look, I don't quite know in the process there - the whole idea of that flyer was to generate communication, not only to parks that people are not happy with it, but back to us as well.

CONOR DUFFY: Other emails obtained by 7.30 show the Game Council councillor Douglas Shupe encouraging shooters to sign up to lobby group the Australian Environment Foundation to push the group to run a pro-hunting line.

Is it appropriate for a councillor on a statutory body, which as you say is supposed to be independent, to engage in what is really overt political activity?

JOHN MUMFORD: We didn't engage in that as councillors. As citizens, as representatives within the hunting community, we have a responsibility to our members to represent them. Now we represent them on the Game Council when we wear our Game Council shirts and we're there officially at meetings. When we are not there, we are not representing Game Council.

CONOR DUFFY: The deadline for shooting to begin in the state's national parks is the start of next month. The latest revelations won't help to allay suspicions. The move is more about a political deal to appease shooters than a policy decision to achieve an environmental outcome in national parks.

JIM PIRIE: No, they won't keep them down. And our local club and most people round here are very much against hunting in national parks because of its very name - it's a park where other people go and so the danger of somebody getting shot is fairly high.